The Monster of Amity Island
by KSherwood
Summary: Chief Brody, Quint, and Hooper are out on the Orca to catch and kill the shark terrorizing Amity Island, but they find way more than just an overgrown shark with a taste for humans. Inspired by RoFlo-Felorez's comic on /art/Godzilla-Jaws-535845439).
1. Chapter 1

"Brody! Start that chum line again, will ya," Quint called to Brody from the crow's nest.

"Let Hooper take a turn," Brody yelled back, just managing to keep the whine out of his voice.

"Hooper drives the boat, Chief." And with that, he scrambled nimbly down to the bridge where Hooper was playing solitaire. "Stop playing with yourself, Hooper. Slow ahead! If you please."

Hooper indignantly threw down the three of clubs.

"You heard him, slow ahead!" Brody thunked the white chum bucket down on the stern and began to shovel the slop overboard without looking. "Slow ahead... I can go slow ahead... c'mon down here and chum some of this shit!"

He stopped abruptly when his hand very suddenly nearly came into contact with the maw of a very large white shark. Cigarette still dangling from his lower lip, Brody backed slowly into the cabin.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat," he babbled.

Quint looked up sharply from his spool of piano wire, stood up, and walked quickly on deck again. His eyes narrowed as he took in the fish circling the boat. He took three deliberate steps forward and then called up to Hooper, playing solitaire again, "Shut off that engine!"

The biologist whirled around, and his eyes bulged behind his glasses. "That's a twenty-footer."

Quint opened his mouth to say, "twenty-five" when the Orca was rocked by an underwater force. The bucket of chum rolled overboard into the dark water.

Then the spiky fins of something enormous broke the surface of the water, a mass of bubbles came up, rolling the boat again (Brody and Quint had to grab onto the furniture for support while Hooper was thrown into the wheel). Several minutes of stunned silence passed.

"The fuck was that?" It was a miracle that Brody hadn't dropped his cigarette.

Quint, who had gone rather pale, shook his head once.

Then the three of them were doused in sea water when the fins, neck, and head of the creature rose slowly from the ocean's depths. It held the twenty-five-foot shark upside down in its mouth like a cat would a mouse. The monster's beady eye surveyed the trio with bored disinterest.

"B-bigger boat," Brody stammered, his saliva drying up.

"We're heading in!" Quint sprang up the ladder to the bridge, touching the rungs twice.

Hooper, on the other hand, leaped down and seized Brody's arm. "Come on, Martin, I need you!"

He disappeared into the cabin for a moment then returned to the deck, arms full of cameras and other equipment.

"Look at the size of that mother!" The chief, for all his training and experience, could only stand and gape.

Hooper shoved him forward. "Move out, move out! C'mon!"

Reality penetrated the shock fogging Brody's brain. "What for?"

"Will you go to the end of the pulpit, please?"

"What for?"

"I need something in the foreground to give it some scale!"

"Foreground my ass!" He turned and ran into the cabin.

"Martin, I'm begging you, goddamnit!" Hooper began snapping pictures of the sea monster, who was only getting taller as more of it rose out of the water. "Look here, darlin! Beautiful! Just beautiful! Quint, slow down!"

"Shut up!" Quint yelled, pushing the throttle into the red.

"I'm serious, the engine's not gonna take it!" Hooper snapped two more photos then realized he was out of film. "Shit!"

Quint ignored him, singing "Spanish Ladies" very loudly and tunelessly, as if trying to drown out the noises the engines were making. Brody tried to work the radio, but in his half-panic, he forgot to press the "transmit" switch.

Fortunately, when black smoke began to pour out of the hold, he was close to the fire extinguisher.

"I knew it; you burned out the bearings," Hooper climbed up the ladder. "Stop the boat!"

Quint did stop, and, after staring at the horizon for a moment, seemed much more in control of himself when he slid down the ladder and joined Brody in the cabin, plucking up two life jackets and throwing one to the chief and then one up to Hooper. His initial panic seemed to have worn off, and he stood quietly, arms folded, as the other two men quickly (and clumsily in Brody's case) donned the protective jackets.

"We're gonna sink, aren't we?" Brody asked.

"No," Hooper said, fiercely.

Quint didn't answer but turned around to face the monster, whose shadow now covered the boat. It calmly bit off the shark's head, sending a crimson shower into the water. Brody laughed nervously. Quint said, "Jesus H. Christ." Hooper dropped his camera, suddenly realizing that big as the shark was, the monster would still be hungry after eating it.

The creature, aware that it was being stared at, did what Hooper had asked it to do several minutes ago. It looked way down at them. And then it blew a gust of hot air.

The Orca beached half a mile from the Brody house. Quint broke his arm. Brody lost his glasses and got another, deeper cut on his face. Hooper, to their displeasure, was left with nothing but a black eye.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey Mom! Mom! Look!" Michael Brody pointed out the car window.

Curious, Ellen Brody looked outside and nearly took the car off the road. Her mouth fell open, and she said a few words she wouldn't ordinarily have said around her sons, or even her husband.

"What?" Michael asked.

"Your father's out there!" She said, still staring at the massive grey head rising from the ocean.

Michael had the presence of mind to look a little worried. Sean, unfortunately, didn't understand the ramifications of a giant sea-monster, and merely clapped his little toddler hands.

"God," she stopped the car.

"What are we going to do?" Michael asked, still staring admiringly at the form of the monster, now looking down at something.

"You two are going home," Ellen declared. "Look after your brother, and I'll come back and try the radio again."

He groaned, but didn't argue. It wasn't like they were going anywhere fast. The rest of the island's population was picking up on what was happening at sea, and more cars had stopped. Some people were even walking dazedly through the streets in search of a better look. Martin's hapless deputy wasn't even trying to control the traffic.

Ellen gritted her teeth and slowly inched forward. Once they were out of town, it was easier, but the odd pedestrian, bike, or other car still found a way to block the Brody family car.

A loud crash ahead of them made Ellen stop again, wondering if she should go further. Then, the realization that it could be a car accident and people might need help (not to mention the embarrassment of having the Chief of Police's wife leave the scene of an accident) made her pull forward again.

"Boat!" Sean chirped.

"Damn," Michael whispered in amazement.

"Martin!" She braked sharply, put the car in park, and ran over to meet the beached Orca.

The boat was a sight... if it wasn't damaged beyond repair, it would be a long and expensive process to fix it. And there was the matter of fixing its master. Quint, perhaps just showing off to atone for his earlier panic, had jumped down into the grass, but was now sheet-white, sweating, and clutching his left arm, which was swollen and somewhat misshapen. He was cursing constantly, inventively, and loudly, between telling Hooper to get the first-aid kit.

"It got crushed," Hooper protested once or twice, before giving up and focusing on Chief Brody, who was bleeding profusely onto his life-jacket.

"I used to hate the water," Brody said weakly, staring at the belly of the sea-monster, still rising out of the water.

"Can't imagine why," Hooper said, dryly.


	3. Chapter 3

They were all packed into the family car... Ellen was driving, and Quint had the front passenger seat, thanks to the severity of his injury. Brody, Hooper, and the two children were piled into the back seat. Sean was sitting on Hooper's lap, and neither of them looked particularly happy about it.

It was easier to get to the hospital than to leave town. But everyone off-duty was standing in the parking lot, gaping at the large form of the sea monster. Ellen parked illegally in front of the Emergency Room entrance and ran to open the back door and help her husband out. Quint, growling and cursing all the way (to Michael's obvious delight) got out of the car unaided and staggered to the doors. He stopped growling, however, when a young blonde nurse walked swiftly over to him, offering assistance.

Someone brought Brody some gauze for his forehead while their paperwork was taken. Hooper hovered awkwardly in the background with Sean on his shoulders and Michael looking bored next to him.

A resident with long hair that flipped up at his shoulders appeared to take Quint away for vitals and X-rays, and the blonde nurse offered to take the Chief to one of the waiting curtained beds to wait for the doctor.

Someone yelled, "It's getting closer!"

"I should call the mayor," Brody said.

"Don't have to," drawled the head nurse as she slipped a clipboard into the front of his bed. "He's just down the hall. Came in with chest pain fifteen minutes ahead of you."

Ellen's reply was cut off by Hooper thrusting her young son back into her arms. "If it's coming closer, I need to be out there. Good luck, Martin."

And he ran.

"Is that blood, Daddy?" Sean asked, looking interested.

Michael sighed.

Outside, Hooper noted that it was much darker than it had been when they'd entered the hospital. It took him just two seconds to realize why. And then the ground began to shake.

Godzilla took his first two steps onto the closed beach of Amity Island. His beady eye surveyed the small island, and the panicking people with disinterest. Clearing the beach, he paused to take an experimental bite out of the radio tower. Sparks showered all over his gray front, and scraps of metal crashed to the ground. Evidently not liking the taste, the giant monster walked away, his tail idly knocking the remnants of the tower over.

Hooper reached for his camera, then realized it was still aboard the wrecked Orca. "Shit! Goddamn it!"

Godzilla took another shambling step forward and stopped. His nose worked for a moment, and then he leaned forward, prying the roof off of Fierro's Fish'n'Chips and took a bite. Debris rained down, causing a few injuries. Evidently disappointed, the giant monster threw the remains of the roof aside.

The roof flew past Brody's deputy, making his hat blow off, and giving him a rather nasty windburn on the left side of his face. He shrieked in horror, but it was drowned out by the resounding crash made by the mayor's beloved billboard catching the flying wood and metal.

The sea creature's disinterested rampage claimed two houses and several cars, before he disappeared into the sea. The Coast Guard appeared half an hour later, helping provide assistance to the people injured and displaced. They extensively photographed and even made a cast of one of the monster's footprints, but remained very skeptical of the descriptions of Godzilla's appearance and actions.

"Why doesn't anyone listen to me?" Hooper demanded, after a lieutenant shrugged off his account.

Brody kept his temper, but felt much the same, as he left the hospital, speaking to another officer in the hospital parking lot.

Quint, being prepped for surgery on his broken arm, was unable to provide a statement, and as Hooper noted, "he wouldn't make that great a witness, anyway."

"It was a sea monster!" Michael Brody said for the fiftieth time. "It was awesome!"

Sean was overdue for a nap and crying, and Ellen didn't have the energy to tell him to be quiet.

The Coast Guard departed, refusing to acknowledge that a giant sea monster had smashed up the island community, but admitting in their official report, "We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened."

On his release from the hospital, Mayor Vaughn lamented the city's losses and nearly gave himself a second heart attack on surveying the damage, but he was shocked, when, during rebuilding, several hundred people came, only interested in hearing what happened, seeing the footprints, and sitting under Fierro's new roof.

The trend continued. Although nowhere near as many people came to swim in the summer, the monster-curious made up the difference throughout the rest of the year. The numbers increased when one bought one of the lots, recently emptied by Godzilla's footsteps, and made it into a museum dedicated to monsters and the summer's strange encounters.

"At least it's not Shark City anymore," Brody said.

Quint, as he recovered, eyed the island monster mania with a good deal of distaste.

"Goddamn idiots," he told his dogs one evening as a group of amateur sea monster hunters in an overloaded boat floated out to sea.

A small, plastic, and for some reason, green version of the creature appeared in the surf, having evidently been dropped by some child earlier in the day. He spat into the ocean and idly patted the black dog's wooly head.

"Almost wish the damn shark got me than see this."


End file.
